Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Summer "vacation."

Like many of my fellow Miserians, I am on a nine-month appointment. That means I don't get paid for the summer. But because I have a heavy teaching load during the school year, summer is when I catch up on research.

I think this is pretty common, especially as research expectations have ratcheted up at regional and two-year institutions, while teaching loads have held constant. We don't have enough hours in the day during the school year to get much research done. We have to catch up in the summer.

I recently had a brief exchange with someone in our Office of Student Retention. She emailed me after the last day of the semester to request some information, which I provided within ninety minutes. She wrote back to "thank" me:

Aloha Frankie,

Mahalo for your reply. I appreciate the resources. Your vacation message does relay that one needs to wait until August 17 to hear back from you. For faculty that is here in the summer, that sounded pretty darn far away. Enjoy your break and safe journeys.

This is extremely annoying. I am not "enjoying" a "break" while hardworking folks like my correspondent slave away on campus. "Vacation" means you're getting paid while not working. I am not getting paid, while working. It's the exact opposite of vacation.

I'm not going to say anything to her. It wouldn't make any difference. But I'd welcome suggestions for a "vacation" message that makes it clear I'm not on vacation.

14 comments:

I'd say the tone of your colleage in OSR reflects a certain blindness of privilege. To collect my thoughts, I begin with a DNS reply (do not send).

Dear Colleague,

Mahalo for your mahalo about the resources. Now, regarding the other 75% of your email, I think it's worth pointing out that while the email settings might refer the messsage you received as a "vacation message", such an autoresponse is useful for a host of other reasons that one may be away from one's assigned seat. My situation is better described as involuntary furlough or seasonal layoff. While this "break" involves a change of scenery from my usual weekly gig on campus, it does not reflect a decrease in activity, for these next several weeks are the only chance I get to do the research that can't get done in the increasingly intense school year. As is the case for all faculty with nine-month appointments, August 17 is the date that my paycheck resumes. You are correct: that IS pretty darn far away. I can count on you to take every opportunity to advocate for the end of this practice of seasonal employment, even if only so that the institution's business can be accomplished in a more timely fashion during the off-season.

There. I feel better, and I think I know where the autoresponse should go:

I am out of the office till August 17, which is when my nine-month-appointment paycheck resumes and I'll be able to buy some fucks to give about your email. Should your matter require more prompt attention, please contact any or all of these individuals:

Bella's approach is much more workable, and similar to what I typically do in practice. I try to avoid using the word "vacation" in the responder, because I don't want to promote the idea that my domicile is unoccupied. Furthermore, there's a good chance that I'm at a conference, and that is most certainly work. So I say that I will be checking email only sporadically till such and such date, etc.

What Was This?

College Misery was a dysfunctional group blog where professors got the chance to release some of the frustration that built up while tending to student snowflakes, helicopter parents, money mad Deans, envious colleagues, and churlish chairpeople.

Our parent site, Rate Your Students, started in 2005, and we continued that mission beginning in 2010. Ben at Academic Water Torture and Kimmie at The Apoplectic Mizery Maker both ran support blogs during periods when this blog had died.